1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to energy saving and power consumption monitoring and particularly to operationalizing a power usage monitoring system that comprises a plurality of power consumption monitoring devices.
2. Related Art
Power consuming appliances are becoming ubiquitous. People use electrical tools and appliances all over their residences. Some electrical appliances are turned on and seldom turned off, even when the user does not need the appliance or make use of it. Most people living in a modern house have a TV, a refrigerator, a washing machine, a washer, a dryer, a heating system, an air conditioner, etc. Most of these devices consume a lot of power when they are plugged into power outlets, some even when they are not being used.
Every day people use a lot of electricity for running electrical tools and appliances but they don't know which appliances are consuming how much power. Every month people get an electric bill and they would like to lower it, but they do not know how to reduce their monthly electrical bill. Every year mankind adds to global warming but we do not individually have an easy way to help reduce global warming. People do not seem to be able to control power consumption at their homes and work places.
Unfortunately, despite widespread acceptance of green house effects and despite rise in the price of crude oil, people have not been provided with effective power saving technologies. People are being encouraged to turn off light bulbs when they are not in a room. Some appliance can be turned off if they are not being used. However, turning off a refrigerator when a user is travelling it is not an option as food stored in the refrigerator is likely to get spoiled when it is turned off.
Often people do not know how much power they can save by following all the typical power saving recommendations. Well meaning individuals have no idea how effective all their power saving efforts has been. Even if one were to use green electrical appliances, one does not know if one can be more effective in saving power by adopting better usage patterns.
Most residential buildings have an electric meter or energy meter that measures the amount of electrical energy supplied to a residence or business. The most common type is a kilowatt hour meter. Typically, the utilities record the values measured by these meters to generate an invoice for the electricity. They may also record other variables including the time when the electricity was used. People are sent electricity usage bills by the utilities periodically.
Most modern electricity meters operate by continuously measuring the instantaneous voltage (in volts) and current (in amperes) and finding the product of these to give instantaneous electrical power (in watts) which is then integrated against time to give energy used (joules, kilowatt-hours etc). The meters fall into two basic categories, electromechanical and electronic. Electric meters are usually installed outside residential neighborhoods to enable meter readers associated with the utilities to stop by and read the meters to prepare a monthly bill. These electric meters do not provide details of how energy efficient individual appliances are in a premises. They do not provide details of how the power is being consumed in the premises. Typically, a user does not get much information from these meters, as they are designed for a meter reader to collect a total usage data or billing information once a month or so.
There is a problem educating users on effective power management techniques that saves them money by reducing power consumption. There is a problem in sharing success stories when some users are able to significantly lower their electric bills by better management of power consumption at home. Quite often, these individuals who have lowered their electric bills do not know how much individual appliances have contributed towards the savings in energy bills.
In any monitoring system that monitors power usage of a set of appliances, with multiple possible components that potentially interact, it is often not clear how the components need to be started, which of those components need to be started first, etc. In addition, configuration of the multiple possible components is likely to depend upon usage of the system, and often such usage is not clearly defined. Thus, such systems often fail to operate or get unused due to operational problems.
In view of the foregoing considerations, it is clear that there is a need for an improved system and method for measuring power consumption and monitoring power usage.